The Beast can be pretty much anything you can think of that fits the profile, female beasts or fan art are welcome Overmind5000 The asset is supposed to be an original creation. But nothing prevents you from starting off a base mesh you may already have lying around somewhere.

Can we make hair or fur for the character? For example, to make a werewolf and to make it alived, we have to use hair and fur tools in maya or zbrush etc.At the last stages, we need to use renderer like Vray to render the hair or fur out.So, can that be allowed?

Can we make "the Beauty and the Beast" instead of just the Beast?I'd like to create both, the Beast and the beauty in the same pedestal,otherwise the topic doesn't have any sense... it would be just a regular monster without the Beauty.

rohMizuno It has to be actual textures, but nothing prevents you from painting polypaint and baking it to a texture at the end of the process.

Johnny_Wuu Hair and Fur must be part of the 100k triangles limit, so it would have to be modeled or baked down to geometry, no render-time fur please or the poly limit won't make any sense.

SergioSantosloretah It's the Beast only. One of the interesting aspects of this contest is the suggestion of Beauty, through the small backstory posted with the asset, or through subtle hints on the pedestal, something belonging to Beauty maybe, or in the Beast posture or action. We also thought 2 characters would be too much for a lot of people to handle in the contest timeframe.

thanks Jerc!a couple more questions here..-is height map/tessellation allowed? (im pretty sure not, but donset hurt asking)-can we use the Alpha channel from our maps for extra information? or we are limited to the RGB channels only

weilun The pedestal can be anything from a piece of land, the floor of a room with some furniture, a cloud...letmekhush Yes you can get inspiration from existing conceptsroMizuno Tesselation/subdivision is not allowed, again to keep the poly limit relevant. Yes, alpha is of course allowed, any kind of map is pretty much allowed.WvB A texture set is anything used in a material, so it can be a siungle diffuse but it can also be an albedo+normal+roughness, etc.So 4x 4096 means 4x 4096 materials, no matter how many channels are used in these materials.

Do objects that hint of the Beauty (furniture, clothes, locket, etc) that are placed on the pedestal, count towards the character's tri limit or the pedestal's? Ideally I would like to have it counted as part of the character's equipment so I can work with more triangles for the said object.

TomGT You could count it as part of the Character if it makes sense. If the beast is holding an item in his hand or looking at an object, then yes. A piece of furniture or decor should be part of the pedestal though.Amaury Of course!

Also, do all base textures have to be 100% original? Or can we use existing substances/smart materials for example from the Substance Painter, Substance Live or Substance SHARE in our process to create the final texture set?

Oscarini Paintovers and Photoshop tweaking is not allowed but most renderers and engines have some pretty comprehensive color correction features integrated and that's allowed.PostProcess It is kind of pushing it but if the "ghost" is subtle enough not to be considered a full on character, that could work, find the right trade off!risu Grey area here, I would say parallax occlusion is allowed as long as it doesn't affect the silhouette of the object.You can of course use any content provided by default in the tools or grabbed on Substance Share. Make sure to include credits in the description if you used Share assets.

As in the final submission a short 100 word story is required. Will this narrative be taken into account by the judges when determining the relevance of the final images to the theme ? Or what`s the general purpose of the text ?Thanks in advance.

Hi, I have few ideas and one of them concerns using mirror. The only solution for me in marmoset is to make copy of model - not exactly copy at least not the whole model. Is it allowed for this type of use?

vickgaza Yes, the text will be taken into account as it can add to the piece in different ways.Cersei_Lannister Yes.Zielarz Yes, since the character would still be unique in the scene, even if "technicaly" duplicated.

I have a few question: i'm thinking of usign Unreal Engine 4 for the rendering, i'ts possible? If yes, can i use particle effect (counting as part of the pedestal)? If i made snow on the pedestal, for eventual snow (made of separate mesh) on the character which polycount (and texture set) i have to follow? Thanks in advance

WvB The rock, along with the vegetation, would have to be part of the pedestal in this case.Microchip As long as the particles are subtle and add to the mood of the scene without being too central, yes, particles are fine!

I also have one other issue, I cant see the point of the competition if people can use old models. Whats stopping me from buying a model, or asking someone who's a really talented 3D artist to send me one of theirs? Wouldn't it make more sense for everyone to start a new model a post updates as they complete it. There is basically no way to prove that anyone completed their own models with the current system. Sorry about the rant just kinda seems like an oversight.

Characters should be made especially for the contest of course like with every contest. Using an existing rough base mesh or an existing concept art as a starting point is permitted though. If people "borrow" models from someone else, it will be pretty easy to spot by looking at the wip threads.

I am having problems uploading images to Polycount. I am not new and I have done it before. It seems to be a recent thing. Whenever I comment on someone else's thread there are many options to upload an image but when it is my own thread there is only one option - image URL. I can upload an image to this thread but not on my own. I don't know how I am going to compete in this contest if I cannot show people my work.

Okay, I am having the image issue as well. I am familiar with how to upload images to polycount and I am familiar with how to put an imugr link up to display an image but that isn't working either. I even tried writing out the html for it but that just gives a broken image icon I can go to my other threads on Polycount and post images just fine.

EDIT: I got it to work finally with just writing out the HTML. For anyone else having this problem switch to HTML view. It's the </> icon above. Then paste:

Hi! I have a question regarding the pedestals. I saw they cannot be wider than 2x the beast itself, but how about height? Like can I for example (as part of the pedestal) have a brazier or a pillar, next to my guy if they are taller than himself? I don't know if I would go there, but I'd like to know if I can't